Little did I know that I need to be a super sleuth in managing my blood sugar.

Symptom: After changing my set last Saturday my BG went way up and stayed there; however, a couple of readings were 100 and 61, so what’s going on here?

Analysis/Diagnosis:

  • I must be getting insulin as evidenced by one normal and one low reading, but then consistently high. If I’m getting insulin, why are my readings high?
  • Maybe there’s a crimp in my pump tubing (I’ve had that before), but nope, that’s not it.
  • Maybe the insulin has gone bad? Again, I doubted it since it’s a relatively new bottle of Novolog and the weather is not hot—a fact that can destroy insulin.
  • My BG was at 422 at bedtime on Saturday, so I pumped 10 units; however, at 5 AM it was 259 and it went up as Sunday progressed. Thus, the bedtime insulin was not effective nor were the additional units I took on Sunday.
  • I checked the connection of the pump tubing with the infusion set and discovered that it wasn’t locked in place. I was sure that was the problem; however, over the next few hours high BG continued although appearing to slowly come down.
  • I wondered what I’d eaten on Saturday evening since I know that a carb pigout can cause longer-term high BG readings. I checked my log book and found that this was not the cause.
  • Finally, very frustrated by now, I changed the infusion set and that produced desired normal blood sugar. This means that the infusion set was defective and it has since been replaced by Medtronic.

The take away for me is to carefully consider all possibilities for a situation like this. I do pat myself on the back for staying calm and methodically checking possible causes. My regular readers may recall how I emphasize maintaining a positive attitude and how this episode yields evidence that my attitude helped.

My recommendations for problem diagnosis are:

  • Stay calm
  • Carefully consider possible causes
  • Don’t go it alone. Rather, contact others in your diabetes support group, your medical team and your diabetes product manufacturers. I’m grateful to Medtronic who is always there for me 24×7!